Within a single company or government agency, as more and more computers become connected together into large computer networks, sometimes stretching across the globe, it becomes increasingly important to protect the information on the computer system from unauthorized access. Such unauthorized access could come from outside the organization, but oftentimes it comes from within the organization. For example, a lower level employee could gain access to sensitive information concerning employee salaries or future plans of the organization.
Data General Corporation, the assignee of the present application, has been active in this field, and introduced a computer security system in August of 1994. This computer security system was tightly integrated with Data General's industry leading DG/UX Unix-based operating system and formed an integral component of the DG/UX operating system architecture. While this security system provided a certain level of control, it suffered from the following drawbacks.
One of the main problems with the prior security system is that in order to allow a user to perform an administrative action on the system, it was necessary to give this user total access to the entire system. For example, if a lower level administrative user is hired into the administration department of a large company to maintain a log of valid users, this lower level user would have to be given "super-user" access to the entire computer system, and could thus access everyone's private files and could potentially read and/or alter company sensitive data. Another problem involves viruses that can be introduced in a computer system. The prior system did not isolate viruses to protect valuable files, nor did it take positive steps to prevent viruses from occurring in the first place, even if being run by an administrative user.